Love in the Parking Lot
by starryjen
Summary: Future fic, a conversation between Ray and Neela in a parking lot in Manchester, England


Disclaimer: I don't own ER. I was tidying up my writing materials today, and in and among all the half full journals I found this story, so thought I would share it. I seem to remember I didn't post it at the time as I thought it wasn't good enough, but reading it through I'm pretty happy with it. Hope you like it too, reviews are magic

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'Parent and child, disabled,' Ray felt a smile toy at his lips as he glanced across at Neela. She wasn't listening, hadn't been for the last five minutes or so, not since the sat nav at told them to turn off the motorway. Instead she'd been staring out of the window in a world of her own 'premier customer, obese shopper.'

'What?' She turned to look at him, her deep brown eyes registering confusion 'What did you say? 'We're here? When did that happen?'

Ray laughed as he swung the car into the space. 'Don't worry about it sweetheart, its just a good thing Ken here,' he pointed to the sat nav system 'didn't abandon me too. Where did you go?'

She smiled across at him as she unbuckled her seatbelt 'Sorry, I was miles away'

He leant across the space separating them, cupping her face in his hand 'Honey, it's a good thing I know you love me, otherwise I would have been offended.'

As he closed the gap between them he could see the laughter in her eyes. Whenever he kissed her in a car, and it was frequent these days, he was reminded of the first time he kissed her, all those years ago back in Chicago in the snow. Had he ever imagined that he'd be kissing her in a shopping mall parking lot outside of Manchester, England? Maybe he'd hoped he would, not specifically in this parking lot, but kissing her frequently had definitely been on his wish list, and the reality had turned out even better.

He slowly pulled away, his lips brushing her forehead as he did so 'Hey, there's something I was wondering.'

Neela looked at him quizzically before pulling him closer for another kiss 'mmh hmm.'

He took the murmur to be consent for him to continue, though he couldn't believe that he still had the ability to ask the question with what her lips were doing on his neck. 'You know you get disabled parking and parent and child parking?' he was momentarily lost for words as she nipped his earlobe with her teeth, it was wrong to be this turned on in a parking lot, but he was. 'Sweetheart I can't believe I'm saying this but you need to stop if we're going to keep this display PG.'

His skin felt exposed as she moved back to the other side of the car, 'so why don't they have special parking for disabled people who have kids?'

She started laughing 'I don't get it, why would they need to?'

He'd known she would laugh but he was serious 'Well us disabled people,' he saw her cringe at his choice of words, 'need more space to get in and out of our vehicles, and parents need more space to get all that paraphernalia out, so it stands to reason that a disabled parent would need even more space.'

'No it doesn't, you wouldn't be getting the stroller and the baby out at the same as you were getting out, would you? You'd get out, then you'd get the baby's stuff out.' He could see her biting her lip in the way she did when she had something important to tell him.

He felt his heart rate increase. Was she saying? 'I guess so'

'Well, we'll find out for sure in seven to eight months won't we?'

Ray tried to fight back the grin that was threatening to fill his face as he closed the space between them to take her in his arms again, 'you sure this time?'

'Yes, I did a test,' he smirked against her neck, there was no way she'd done only one test, 'okay, I did three tests this morning whilst you were charming my mother.'

'Hey, I can't help it if she likes me.'

'She doesn't like you, she's just thankful that you saved me from sitting on the shelf for the rest of my life. She was worried that I was all work and no play, and that no man would ever want me like that.'

'Little does she know that I'd have saved you from that a long time ago if only you'd have let me.' She winced as she'd done when he'd made fun of his disability, she was getting better at dealing with his self deprecating humour, but occasionally, like today, he could tell she still took it too seriously. 'Sweetheart, you came through in the end which is the main thing,' if looks could throw a punch, he'd have been nursing a sore arm with the look she was giving him. 'Just think how happy she'll be to hear about the baby.'

Neela laughed at him again 'Really? You think she's going to be happy to hear that I'm having a baby at the great old age of thirty three. I can hear her now, you're sisters were in their early twenties when they had children,' her voice mimicked her mother's so well that Ray almost thought she was hiding in the backseat, 'think about the problems that you'll have at your age, the varicose veins, the gas, you'll suffer much worse at your age, you should have thought about children when you were younger instead of all this silly running around becoming a surgeon, having a career stuff that you did, and now, now you're going to suffer for it. She's going to despair when we tell her.'

'She'll be happy for us, she'll be worried about you, but that's her right as your mother, she'd be worried if you were twenty three, or forty three, and having a baby, its just her way. But she'll be happy, I promise, she loves you and wants you to be happy.

She looked at him quizzically 'You didn't say something did you?'

'Me, no,' he couldn't quite meet her eye, instead he found himself staring at the car parked on the other side of the path to them, 'okay, I may have said something about us wanting to have kids sometime in the future, nothing wrong with that, is there?'

She shook her head, laughing again, 'you bastard, I've been worrying about how she'll take it, and you've been preparing the way, you could have told me.'

'And you could have told me you were doing a test or three, so we're even.'

'No chance mister, I'm going to be carrying this baby for the next eight months, you owe me big time.'

'Well lets get this shopping done and then I can start making it up to you.' Ray opened the car door, and slowly manoeuvred himself out.


End file.
